Keynova Group, a financial services intelligence firm specializing in benchmark insights, evaluates the website capabilities of the 12 largest U.S. auto and property insurance carriers.
Beth Robertson, managing director, Keynova Group, told Digital Insurance via email that there was a jump in online flood coverage offerings. The scorecard indicates that 67% of carriers, up from 42% at the end of last year, now offer instant online flood insurance quoting.
"I think it's indicative of the importance of the digital sales channel in helping to support consumers' rapidly changing coverage needs as they strive to keep pace with climate change," Robertson said. "Broadening coverage to new types of policies that can be evaluated and purchased online is one change that we are seeing. New ways of enacting coverage, such as based on specific weather parameters, is another dynamic that we expect to see in some product offerings that can be sold digitally and measured through online or mobile data."
Two-thirds of carriers now offer online purchasing and binding and one-third provide an anchored price and purchase link to access the binding process. In a previous scorecard,
"Digital claims filing and tracking will also be extended to more policy types, and digital tools for damage assessment, sizing, impact evaluation, and submission will also expand," Robertson said. "For example, people tend to think of telematics as related to safe driving and crash detection; however, those technologies could also be applied to detect and measure wind, rain, or hail damage and help provide rapid digital information to insurers, enabling them to resolve claims more quickly and accurately."
Many carriers are also continuing to expand their Spanish-language options, half of the firms have Spanish translations on public content. Only GEICO offers quotes in Spanish and authenticated site translations.
"Most sites are now offering product content, and some are providing educational resources in Spanish to help users to become informed about insurance products and self-service," Robertson said. "While many carriers offer Spanish-language phone support, most are now explicitly listing that option on their website and calling out specialists such as claims support representatives or business policy sales persons who can speak Spanish or other languages. Similarly, agent locators are listing the languages spoken by their agents, and some offer a language-based sort feature."
Additional information to note:
- Progressive also offers payment options like PayPal to purchase policies online.
- Nationwide suspended digital quoting for auto and homeowners' policies in 2022 but is beginning to reverse this practice and return to digital quoting.
